To sample or not to sample..?

Isn’t it amazing how a song can raise memories, emotions and feelings? Music can have you dreaming off entirely fictional scenarios; wholly immersed in fantasy. It can even transport your conscious to a time long gone. Sampling; in song, is a great way of connecting with fans by arousing reminiscence.  In this piece we explore the impact of sampling on the Namibian music scene.

If you’re not in the know, sampling is the reuse of a portion or sample of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may consist of rhythm, melody, speech, or other sounds. The term sampling was coined in the late 1970s and is a foundation of hip hop music, with producers sampling funk, jazz and soul records which were then rapped over. The practice has influenced all genres of music and is particularly important to electronic music, hip hop and pop.

WBL caught up with D-Jay, Kanibal and J-Black; three of Namibian raps’ top hit makers, to discuss the topic at hand.

Have you heard the new-school ‘Siwelewele’? No? Well, you ought to. Urban M.C.; D-Jay, recently released this insanely awesome number, which samples Peoples Choice’s popular 90’s Afro-pop hit. D-Jay revealed that he was working on a track with Bertholdt (for his “Champion: The Gift and The Curse” album) which was initially to be called “I’m good”. He was set to sing the entire song, without rapping, but he wasn’t happy with the sound. He, however, loved the beat so much as he grew up listening to the original. “It’s a classic… So I went back to the studio a week later and I told my producer to let me try something else on that ‘Siwelewele’ beat and we got a female to sing the original words. Because I didn’t want to ruin a classic. As soon as we did that, we knew we had a hit.”

You can listen to it on namibiamusic.com where it has amassed 2.4K streams and 1.8K downloads in about a month.

When asked if he would mind if another artist sampled one of his songs, D-Jay said “Music is music. Every song is inspired by a song. I wouldn’t mind as long as it’s a hit…” He added that it just means that he made a difference in people’s lives. “There are millions of songs out there, for someone to want to sample my music means that it had an impact on their life n this is their way of showing appreciation… I have to approve. We have to clear the sample” He went on to say that he has heard of newcomers who sampled his songs “girl like mine” and “listen to your heart”; albeit unsuccessfully.

J-Black says that he too would be really happy. “I mean that means that the person was inspired by my song.” He goes on to say “…with my permission they can make the most out of the song, without it, the song dies as it can’t be put on an album or anything for that matter except for FREE streaming and downloads.”

Sampling without permission is known as copyright infringement. Clearance can be explained as the process of acquiring permission for a sample; and can be a complex and costly procedure. Nonetheless, Sampling continues to be increasingly popular in many-a- genre from around the world.

J-Black’s “What shall we do” samples the late Oliver Mtukudzi’s track of the same name, while featuring the late legend as well. The song has already gained more than 7500 plays and upwards of 8000 downloads on namibianmusic.com in about 4 months’ time.

The ‘SWAPO Colours’ hit maker just bagged an endorsement deal with Panarottis. “I will be working with them to bring awareness to their brand, to make it bigger and more popular amongst the youth.” When asked about the music, he continued to say “Yeah, I got music coming, can’t reveal too much about that but just know I been in studio with Kani, countless nights working on new stuff. Performing 6^th April at Diboh carwash as we bid farewell to DJ Stigga, and in Easter I’m heading to Mariental, looking forward to that.”

Some artists experience criticism for relying too much on the practice. So much so that some have even created albums assembled almost entirely from samples, like Kanye West. Many have questioned the creativity of this multi-Grammy award winning artist and labelled him a plagiarist, especially after he released “My Dark, Twisted Fantasies”. The album was filled with samples from “The Turtles”, “Bon Iver”, “Pete Rock” and at least a dozen other musicians from numerous genres of music.

Kanibal; being a producer himself, is of the opinion that the way Kanye West samples is genius. “He completely re-imagines the sounds, cuts different pieces, speeds them up, slows them down, to a point where it is really HIS creativity at work, and the sample is just a tool, like an instrument of its own. The late 90’s/early 2000’s P. Diddy sampling is blatant plagiarism, because he would just take the WHOLE melody and put Hip Hop drums on it. That’s not art, my 5-year-old son could probably do that.”

The NAMA Award winner is no stranger to the practice either. The Legendary Producer/Rapper/Singer sampled parts of Tate Kwela’s ‘Ohela hela’ on his own anti-GBV smash hit ‘Don’t Cry’; which was released in the mid-2000s.

Kani goes on to reveal how ‘Don’t Cry’ came about – “At the time I was struggling to find a formula that I could use to incorporate authentic Namibian sounds with my genre of music. The main problem was that the authentic Namibian genres are not at the same tempo as Hip Hop. Then God intervened. One day I was in my office, and the guy in the office next to me, an older Owambo man (Uncle Vincent Richard) was playing Tate Kwela songs. At the time I had never heard of Tate Kwela. His voice and guitar style captured me. I immediately took the tracks, did my research on who owns the rights, contacted them, and began cutting and building the beats around his voice. The rest is history I guess.”

Kanibal says, of late, he has been producing for the solo projects of 061Music artists (Tuko, Balu and Panda). “I’m also getting fully into music video production, turning that from a hobby into a profession, so I’m perfecting my craft. When the time is right, I shall start working on my last album.” He continued.

Yep, you read right. Kani could soon be hanging up the mic. But why panic when you can jam out to his new rendition of Ou Stakes ‘Ti /Namsaro’? The track is a hot new single of Kanibal’s latest offering – Episode 2. King Wasabi can be heard on the bridge as Kani does what his best known for on the chorus and verses. Oh, incase you dont ‘Matisa’ very well, the song is about “long lastin true love”. Checkout the playlist below to hear it. Peace!